At which im fairly certain R-74M is still at a disadvantage compared to ASRAAM or MICA IR in terms of range and weaker than the IRIS-T in close range.
When the next gen of IR comes. Typhoon and Rafale will be slapping from longer ranges and Typhoons and Gripen Es will be slapping in short ranges.
(will be hilarious if they just keep doing what htey’ve done so far with the Typhoon and give all 3 nations both IR missiles and allow them to be used at the same time. OP as hell and would be a shame, but nonetheless funny)
K-74M2 has the new Karfagen-760 (Carthage) seeker made by the Russian Azov AOMZ company and an improved 516-1M rocket motor from the Kartukov Iskra company with increased specific impulse and a longer burn time.
Thanks to an inertial flight control system with radio data link for mid-course correction (absent on the previous missiles) the K-74M2 can be fired in a lockon- after-launch (LOAL) mode, initially flying under inertial control before achieving in-flight lock-on. The K-74M2 is intended to match the performance of the MBDA ASRAAM and the Raytheon AIM-9X Sidewinder (see part one, May, p62-65).
Aim9x, even 3 or 4 will always be limited by the design philosophy of the missile. At the end of the day, it’s mostly an improved aim9m, which comes with limitations in range compared to the ASRAAM/MICA IR (which is why I don’t really understand the 2 way datalink in the latest variants) and it will not turn as good as the IRIS-T in short range situations.
The US doctrine as always trended towards high performance MRAAM, so they’ll stick with that (until AIM260), and I doubt they’ll develop a Fox 2 as performant as the European counterparts any time soon
generaly the fact stays US needed a relatively cheaper missle to equip all their aircrafts.
Else the price becomes to high. Since European nations overall had less aircraft they were able to focus more on quality. Hence Meteor and stronger Fox2s
The block 3 9X apparently has 60 percent greater range than current block 2 9X. Which should put it at around 32 KM range. Which is still less than mica and ASRAAM. Also, what’s the peregrine? Never heard of it before.
I don’t really see how they can increase the range of the missile by 60% without changing the outer body. They changed the front fins a bit but I don’t believe that this is going to reduce the drag by such an amount to allow for 60% greater range.
Since they also kept the length I don’t think they added a lot more propellant either. I guess they mainly imporved the seeker and it now gets
“+60% range! At a very specific test window at bad weather conditions”
It’s called a digital autopilot, advanced energy respecting / conserving guidance laws and Lofting / trajectory shaping and probably reoptimizing / mapping the Center of mass / pressure / lift shifting as it though to motor burnout. as well as advances to propellant grain structure & construction techniques, each one of these changes cribs slight percentages that compound together. Or just straight up comparing it to the baseline AIM-9X, which is basically just a -9M with a fancy seeker.
Basically there are a ton of little things that can be done, especially if you set up the showcase scenario to need as little correction as possible, it’s almost certainly a supersonic launch against a faster closing target that does not maneuver, possibly with data-linked sensor providing positional updates throughout flight to avoid being limited by the on board seeker’s resolution.
The -9X-3 is the Block 2Plus and as such revised a ton of stuff, all the -4 did was replace the mechanical INS with a laser ring system, as it was responsible for 80% of BIT failures in the fleet, due to aging components.
I mean…MICA NGs are said to have an increase in range of over 60% in air to air (80km to 130km) and 100% increase in surface to air (20km to 40km) while maintaining the same body, same dimensions/length/weight. So it isn’t a crazy thing.
